Here in Plymouth, a similar bad year for waterfowl. Yesterday, I checked our three Wood Duck nest boxes. It appears that all three failed. One box was unused - no sign of activity. The other two boxes contained 8 and 9 unhatched eggs. No sign of broken eggs. The nests contained down feathers and we have observed Wood Duck hens entering and exiting the boxes. We have observed Hooded Mergansers occasionally on the pond but no young and no Hoody eggs in the boxes.
We did observe two broods of Wood Duck ducklings on the pond roughly 2 weeks ago but only for a few days. One brood had 10 and one had 20+ (difficult to count exactly). My neighbor, who lives a few doors away but not on the pond, called me the day before I observed the 20-duckling brood and told us that he had seen the hen and ducklings walking through his yard. Evidently, they hatched in another neighborhood nest box. However, both large broods disappeared just a few days after we saw them. There are several small lakes in the area so it is possible they walked to one of those lakes. At the moment, we have one lone, 1/3 grown Wood Duck duckling on the pond. I will note that we have a resident Broad-winged Hawk here. I see it nearly every day. Last year, I saw it take one of the Woodie ducklings so perhaps he/she is partly responsible for Wood Duck attrition. We also have cats, dogs, snapping turtles, foxes and coyotes (not at the same time) around so there are lots of predators. However, predation likely does not account for the failed boxes given that we see adult ducks regularly. Wood Ducks arrived this spring long before the ice disappeared so the cold May probably did not help. The late ice out might explain the late arrival of 'Hoodies' and lack of 'Hoodie' eggs. We have one Mallard pair and a few male Mallards but, so far, no sign of Mallard nesting or young. This is not surprising because it has been several years since we had Mallard reproduction here. As far as small songbirds are concerned, we are probably typical. We had many warblers, vireos, et al during migration. Pine Siskins just left a few days ago but we have about the usual number of Chickadees, Woodpeckers, Goldfinches, Great-crested Flycatchers, Orioles, Nuthatches, Wrens, etc as usual. However, I think Chickadee chicks are late this year. Sid Stivland Plymouth, MN On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 12:55 AM Steve Weston <swesto...@gmail.com> wrote: > I cleaned out 3 of our 4 Wood Duck boxes on Sunday. > 1) 19 eggs, at least 2 of them were Hooded Mergansers. The nest had > significant down feathers indicating that a hen had been incubating the > eggs. Several of the eggs were broken and the box smelled of rotten eggs. I > have no idea if the broken eggs were the result of an incident that led the > hen to abandon the nest or if the eggs were broken after she left. > 2) 19 eggs, all Wood Duck. No down feathers indicating a hen had spent > time with the eggs. > 3) 14 eggs. Same situation as the above box. > 4) I did not disturb this box as I thought I heard some movement in the > box. > > This has been a dismal year for waterfowl on our lake. I have only seen two > or three broods of Canada Goose and then with only a few goslings. One pair > had two goslings and the other had 5 goslings. Both pairs appeared to loose > one youngster. We have never had so few broods and all with the lowest > numbers that we have ever seen. For the first year that we have ever seen, > we had no Mallard broods. We only had two Wood Duck broods (20 and 10 > ducklings). Those were good size broods, but many fewer broods that in > previous years. interestingly, we have not seen any of the broods for a > couple of weeks. > > Steve Weston > On Quigley Lake in Eagan, MN > swest...@comcast.net > > ---- > Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net > Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html > ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
